Naughty Neighbor

“Don’t worry about scratching it. It already has a scratch. It’s on the right front fender just above the headlight.”

She dug her heels in. “I’m not driving your car.”

He gave her a shove. “What’s your name?”

“Louisa Brannigan.”

He opened the driver’s side door to the Porsche and settled her in.

“Okay, Lou, have a good time and try to keep your speed down. It shimmies a little at one-twenty.”

“Louisa! My name is Louisa!”

“Whatever.”

Chapter 2

Louisa sampled a crab puff and smiled pleasantly at Sam Gundy. The man made shoes-lots of them. And he was telling Louisa exactly how it was done.

Louisa felt her eyes begin to cross and snapped herself to attention. She took a quick peek around the room. Everything seemed to be running smoothly.

Nolan was courting big business tonight, looking to replenish almost empty campaign coffers. He’d chosen his guests carefully. They were all good party members, all very wealthy, all very boring. Nolan knew better than to be upstaged when he wanted money. He always made sure he was the best dressed, best looking, most politically powerful person in the room when he made his pitch for support. And he always invited a few members of the press to his parties. It helped him achieve “star quality,” he said. Nolan was big on “star quality.”

Nolan was a man on the way up. And Louisa knew if she did her job well, she’d go up with him.

“You ever been inside a shoe factory?” Sam asked Louisa.

“No sir, I haven’t.”

“It’s pretty exciting.”

“I bet.”

Female laughter rose above the murmurings of polite society. Nothing alarming, but loud enough to catch Louisa’s attention. Nolan had a small staff, and they all wore several hats. Among other things, it was Louisa’s job to make sure social occasions ran smoothly. She adjusted the volume on heated arguments, poured coffee into drunks, and made sure under-the-table fondlings were kept discreet.

“I’d be happy to show you around my shoe factory if you ever get up to my neck of the woods,” Sam Gundy said.

Another ripple went through the room. Something was causing a stir. Louisa’s party radar clicked into hyperdrive. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said to Gundy. “I think I’d better check…”

She turned and bumped into Pete Streeter. He was wearing jeans with a hole in the knee, beat-up white tennis shoes, a black T-shirt, and a custom-tailored navy faille tux jacket. Nolan Bishop was no slouch when it came to looks, Louisa thought, but Pete Streeter made Nolan look like Buster Brown.

Pete draped his left arm over Louisa’s shoulders and leaned into her. “How’s it going, babe?”

Louisa swallowed audibly and put her hand to her forehead to make sure her hair roots weren’t smoldering. She was blushing, hot and furious. It was a first. Too young for the change of life, she thought. What was left? Extreme embarrassment and a sexual attraction that bordered on the ridiculous. “What are you doing here?” she asked Streeter.

“Thought I’d come check up on you.” Streeter turned his attention to Sam Gundy. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately,” he explained. He shook his finger at Gundy. “And you should be ashamed of yourself, luring a sweet young thing like this up to see your dirty old shoe factory. I guess I know what you have in mind.”

Gundy sucked in his breath. “I was going to show her shoes!”

“Yeah,” Pete said, “that’s what they all say.” He clamped a hand at the nape of Louisa’s neck to prevent her from wriggling away from him. “You look all flushed,” he said to her. “I bet you haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Crab puff,” she managed. “I had a crab puff.”

“You see,” he said to Gundy. “She really needs someone to take care of her. It’s a good thing I showed up.”

A woman walked up to them. “Aren’t you Pete Streeter?” she asked. “I saw your picture on the cover of GQ.”

“A lot of people make that mistake,” Pete said. “I’m not that person at all. We just have the same tailor. And it’s the hair. Really,” he told her. “I’m not him.” He gave Louisa a friendly pat on her bottom. “Don’t go away. I’ll get you some food.”

Louisa looked for a sharp knife, but there weren’t any within reach. Just as well. It’d be a shame to ruin the tux jacket. It was a masterpiece. So was Pete Streeter, she admitted, but that wasn’t going to stop her from mutilating him once they were alone.

Pete wandered over to the buffet table, took a plate, and wondered what the devil he was doing at this party. He’d told himself he was worried about the Porsche, but he knew that was baloney. The horrible truth, he decided, was that he’d had an intense, irrational craving to see more of Louisa Brannigan.

It was a frightening revelation. Even more frightening was the fact that he didn’t have a clue why he was so attracted to her. He couldn’t find anything redeeming about the woman, although she didn’t look bad in the silky suit. He loaded a plate with slivers of fresh fruit and a mound of tiny sandwiches. He snaked his way back through the crowd and handed the plate to Louisa. “Eat up.”

“I don’t-”

He popped a sandwich into her mouth. “Chew.”

“Mmmmmph.”

One of the media people sidled up to Pete and introduced himself. “I heard you were in town,” he said. “I heard you were doing something big, something controversial.”

“We’ll see,” Pete told him. “It’s still in the research stage.”

A man with a video camera appeared from nowhere and trained the recorder on Streeter. It drew more people.

Louisa felt a hand tug at her sleeve. It was Nolan. “Who is this guy?”

“Pete Streeter.”

“What’s he doing here? Did you invite him?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, get him out of here. Now! Take him somewhere and keep him there. He’s insulted Sam Gundy, wiped out the pate sandwiches, and he’s monopolizing the press.”

“Right.”

“And find out where he got the tux jacket.”

“Yes sir.”

Half an hour later, Pete pulled the Porsche into Louisa’s designated parking space and cut the ignition.

“Maybe this is all just a bad dream,” Louisa said. “Maybe today never happened. I’m going to go to bed now, and maybe things will be better when I wake up.”

Pete followed her to the door and stood patiently while she opened it. “It’s not so bad, you know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No one got hurt, and we got to go to a neat party.”

“You crashed that neat party. And you insulted poor Sam Gundy.”

“Hey, I even got dressed up. I wore my tux.”

Louisa let her gaze travel the length of him. “What about the jeans and sneakers?”

“What about them?”

Louisa unlocked her door and stepped into the foyer. Pete followed. “Where do you think you’re going?” she asked.

“I figured you’d want to offer me a drink or something.”

“Nothing! I’m not going to offer you anything! And I don’t want you in my house.”